Improvement in piano-forte actions



UNITED STATES PATENT OEEICE.

NAPOLEON J. HAINES, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT lN PIANO-FORTE ACTIONS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 24,] l 9, dated May 24, 1859.

T0 all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, NAPOLEON J. HAiNEs, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Piano-Forte Actions; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 is a side view of a piano-forte action with my improvement, exhibiting it at rest. Fig. 2 isa side view of the same, exhibiting it in condition to repeat after having struck the string. Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the jack and repeating-fly detached from the other parts of the action.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the several figures.

The object of my invention is to obtain a very rapid and easy repetition of the blow of the hammer in a piano-forte action without the use of such complicated mechanism as is employed for the purpose in most of the repeating actions heretofore constructed; and to this end my invention consists in the employment of a cross-shaped or four-armed repeating-ily, applied and operating in combi,- nation with the jack, the key, and the hammer, substantiallyT as hereinafter described, for the purpose of arresting the hammer at a short distance lfrom the string when it falls after striking and supporting it in such a manner that by a very slight rise of the front end of the key the jack is permitted to enter the notch of the hammer-butt far enough to permit the repetition of the blow.

To enable others skilled in the art to apply my invention, l will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A is the key.

B is the hammer applied and having its butt O formed as in what is commonly known as the French action, except that the notch o in the butt is made deeper from back to front than is usually the case in that action to permit the operation of' my repeating-ily F.

D is the jack, and E the jack bottom, both constructed and applied as in the French action, except that the bottom E is extended farther forward and turned up at its front end, as shown at b, and that the jack is slotted through from back to front near its tip for the repeating-ily to pass through and provided at the back on either side of its slot with a cheek c to receive a pin d, which attaches the repeating-fly.

G is thc regulating-screw, applied in the rest-rail H, to operate on the heel of the jack,

as in the French action.

The cross-shaped or four-armed repeating fly F, which constitutes the principal feature of my invention, has its arms arranged to form nearly right angles, as shown in Figs. l and 2. The principal portion of. the said fly is in front of the j ack; but the rear arm passes through the slot in the jack to bc connected by the pin d, which is arranged as far back as practicable. The upper arm of the said fly enters the notch oJ of the jack, and its tip, which is leathered or cushioned, comes to about the same height as the tip of thc jack. The lower arm extends downward nearly as low as the center e of' the jack, and is connected by a spring f with the upward proj ection b on the jack-bottom, and the front arm projects forward under a regulating-screw g', fitted into the hannner-block. tends to pull forward the lower arm of the fly.

The jack is furnished with pads of felt at 7L and /z' to serve as stops to the ily and prevent any sound being produced by the working thereof.

The operation of the action is as follows: Then the key is free the point of the jack is just within the notch of the hammer, as it would be in the French or any other action, and so held by the spring f, which, by its action on the lower arm of the ily, pulls up the fly against the stop-cushion 7L, and so acts upon the jack to draw it back. The jack is at the same time prevented entering too far into the notch by the upper arm of the flyF, which interposes itself between the jack and the front of the notch, where the lly rests with its tip some distance clear of the top of thc notch and its front arm some distance below the button of the regulating-screw g, as shown in Fig. l. lVhen the key is struck, the fly rises with the jack till, just as the latter is escaping or about to escape, the front arm of' the fly is stopped by its arrival at the screw g, and when the hammer falls from the string after striking it falls an extremely short distance before the butt is arrested by the tip of the fly, which is supported partly by the pin (Z and partly by the spring f, which holds it rlhe spring f 2 Qlilll@ is struc-k Wit-h sufficient force to cause the recoil of the hammer as far as the back-check and its retention thereby, it is only necessary to let the front end of the key rise far enough to release the hammer from the hack-check,

and the hammer is immediately raised to the condition shown in Fig. 2 by the action of the spring f on the fly F and ready to repeat. The fly-spring f also serves as the jack-spring, and is the only spring used in the'action.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

The cross-shaped or four-armed fly F, ap-

plied in combination with the jack, the key7 and the hamm er-butt, to operate substantially as herein set forth.

N. J. HAINES. Vitnesses:

WM. TUsoH, W. HAUFF. 

